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Saturday, March 22, 2014

Rick Scott's Top Fundraiser Quits Amid Campaign Turmoil and Racism

Mike Fernandez was named Finance Co-chair of Rick Scott's campaign to ruin our state for four more years just two months ago. He is a billionaire CEO who has done quite well under our governor.

It wasn't enough for Rick Scott to be the largest Medicaid fraudster in US history. He did a major sequel with Mike Fernandez that I wrote about when Mike was just appointed. Essentially Mike was the mastermind behind Rick Scott's “managed care” Medicaid scam, which carves up our state into 11 regions to private insurers. This was after Mike made a huge campaign contribution to Scott. Not surprisingly, two of Mike's companies were awarded contracts for some of these regions worth BILLIONS in Medicaid funds.

Mike, in return, raised a few million for Rick Scott in his new post. But yesterday, Mike abruptly quit.

Despite the praise, Fernandez has been unhappy for weeks with the struggling campaign’s direction and the attitude of some of its workers.

Fernandez began expressing his frustrations at least a month ago when he sent an email to top Scott allies and complained about two campaign aides who had joked around in a cartoon-style Mexican accent en route to a Mexican restaurant in Fernandez’s home town of Coral Gables.

Truth is, Rick Scott is behind in the polls despite spending tens of millions. He has a negative job approval rating. In addition to the bigotry, the article mentions frustration with the poll stagnation. Mike may have sensed this is a sinking ship and is just the first rat to jump off. Its not like this hasn't happened before for Rick Scott. He has so far had a record 17 staff member resignations in his governorship.

Slick Rick has managed to piss off just about every constituent group outside of ignorant, angry whites. But unfortunately, he remains competitive because this group makes the largest single voting block in Florida. Combine that with his extensive voter suppression tactics, and he could still pull it off. Banking on Florida to do the right thing has never been a safe bet.

4:26 PM PT: My initial post about Mike Fernandez back in January focused on the shady nature of one of Mike's winning companies. They upgraded their website significantly since I ran that story, but notice they took down who was on their team.